Polar Regions

"The reversal of the polar magnetic fields on the Sun has been one of the big open questions in science and what we will be able to do with Solar Orbiter is measure for the first time the really important fluid flows that grab pieces of the magnetic field across the Sun and transport them to the polar regions".

This will sweep southwards, introducing cooler air from the polar regions.

"However, our analysis of the datasets shows that the decline in surface albedo in the polar regions only accounts for roughly 15 percent of the most recent decline in planetary albedo," Helge Goessling explains.

Since the 1500s, only two bird species in the Western Palaearctic, a vast area spanning North Africa to polar regions, were considered to have gone extinct.

This is just part of an area referred to by some as the Third Pole; a place which has more ice than any other part of the world outside the polar regions.